The Verdict

Belgrade Theatre

*****

From the very start this is the most gripping
courtroom drama with a brilliant storyline and wonderfully flawed but
fabulous characters played by a tip-top cast of well-known actors.

Frank Galvin (Ian Kelsey) inhabits a 1980’s snowy
Boston, the backdrop to our hero’s drunken decision to challenge the
might of the medial establishment, the Catholic church, his own poverty
and even some crooked lawyers with a less-than-ethical range of dirty
tricks.

His office is dingy and clearly his home and
Meehan’s Irish Bar, his second home where Eugene Meehan (Michael Lunney)
provides common sense and food in the watering hole where he meets Donna
St Laurent (Josephine Rogers), a new mystery barmaid and so nearly his
undoing.

A medical mistake turns into a high-profile
malpractice case as Deborah Ann lies in a persistent vegetative state
after the delivery of her third child has gone badly wrong.

Her elderly and impoverished mother Mrs McDaid
(Anne Kavanagh) is left to bring up three motherless children in a
two-room apartment with no support. The Catholic Church, in the shape of
Bishop Brophy (Richard Walsh), offers a less-than-generous out-of-court
settlement that Frank thinks, and hopes can be bettered.

He faces J Edgar Concannon (Christopher Ettridge),
barrister from the biggest Boston law firm who has paid off the main
witness, scared the mother, bribed Frank’s new love and sweet-talked the
judge (Richard Walsh). But Galvin’s 75-year-old mentor Moe Katz (Dennis
Lill) is a gem injecting much-needed common sense and humour into
Frank’s mindset.

You will have noticed by now that this has more
than a bit of an Irish tinge and the music used to punctuate is Irish
tunes that suit beautifully the mood of the story’s progress. The set is
also wonderful, switching from Irish bar to office to courtroom with
ease.

The story hinges on the testimony of a frightened
nurse (Holly Jackson Walters) whose refusal to capitulate to the two
doctors (Paul Opacic and Michael Lumley) costs her her job, and Lionel B
Thompson (Okon Jones), the stand-in ‘expert witness’, a black New York
doctor who faces his cross-questioning with charm, wit and the
confidence of experience.

This is deservedly a popular and gripping drama
that is a joy from beginning to end. Wonderful. Designed and directed by
Michael Lumley, this Middle Ground Theatre production runs to
02-02-19